Easter

We had a very blessed Easter this year. We awoke to absolutely gorgeous weather. I don't remember the last time we had nice weather on Easter. It was wonderful. In years past, we've been hunting eggs in the house!

We made it to church nearly on time and walked into a standing room only service. I headed toward the other side to take our place standing at the back and fortunately saw friends of ours with just enough room at the end of their pew for us. So thankful for that! The kids did really well considering Mass lasted an hour and a half that morning. We got to see friends of ours have their children baptized, so that was really nice. Father had invited all the children up to the front during the service in order to give more people seats. My girls stayed with me, but after awhile, the temptation of watching another little girl walk back and forth from the back to the front was just too much for our little E. She kept saying, "I go?!" I was holding a sleeping Jayten in my arms and she took off toward the front. Fortunately it was right before Communion and not during the Homily or when it was silent. I quietly walked up the aisle to retrieve her and found her dancing and singing with outstretched arms. I did have to smile and as I looked around, I saw other people smiling and giggling too. As I started to take a step toward her, she headed a little closer to the altar. All the children were getting a blessing at the time so she wasn't really disrupting anything, but I wasn't quite sure what she might do next. Another friend spotted her and was able to scoop her up and bring her back to us. 

After Mass we headed home to prepare lunch dinner for Josh's family. (MJ calls it lunch dinner because it's too late for lunch, but before dinner. We were going to eat around 2). We fixed a ham, funeral potatoes (a whole other post), apple pie and corn flake cookies. Katrina, Barth and his kids, J&S and Joe joined us for dinner. They brought the side dishes. The guys enjoyed watching the final round of the Masters while us gals chatted and the kids played. Afterwards, Stephanie and I hid eggs for the girls to find out in the backyard. 

My folks get each of the kids a Longaberger Easter basket for their first Easter, so J received his this year. It's in the shape of an egg. Since he's not big enough for candy yet, I got Josh some Sports-themed Snickers bars for it. 

It was a very nice weekend. We have so much to be thankful for: family, friends, freedom and especially a Savior who died and rose again for all of us.